The indices had a very interesting start to the week. Pre-opening futures were down sharply, and the indices opened lower. The SPX actually took out the last 2-day support and the NDX just slightly. When they couldn't followed through to the downside, they immediately bounced, continued higher all morning and went sideways in a consolidation range for a couple hours, and then broke to the upside and bull-flagged their way higher, closing at the high for the day.

Net on the day the Dow was up 21.39 at 9626.80, about 90 points off its low. The S&P 500 up 6.61 at 1049.34, a new 2009 high, and 14 points off its low. The Nasdaq 100 was up 8.30 to over 1693.76, right at the high for the day, also a new 2009 high, 20 points off its low.

So, a weak opening and then a strong reversal, with the markets rallying for the rest of the day, holding support.

The technicals were positive by better than 2 to 1 on advance-declines on New York and 3 to 2 on Nasdaq.

Up/down volume was better than 2 to 1 positive on New York on light total volume of 1.1 billion. Nasdaq traded over 2.1 billion and had about a 2 to 1 positive volume ratio.

TheTechTrader.com board was mixed to generally higher. Leading the way was Goldman Sachs (GS) up 3.01 to 177.71, American International Group (AIG) up 3.56 to 41.11, the Direxion Financial Bull 3x Shares (FAS) 2.89 to 79.57, and JP Morgan (JPM) up 1.25 to 43.75.

By far the star of the day was Zoom Technologies (ZOOM) which exploded for $8.56 or 212% after reporting fantastic results following a recently completed merger

Among junior biotechs, Dendreon (DNDN) surged 3.62 or 15% to $27.46 & set new all time highs. Human Genome Sciences (HGSI) was up 1.24 to 20.46. Jazz Pharmaceuticals (JAZZ) jumped 44 cents to 9.60.
EDAP (EDAP) was up 20 cents to 4.67, and Spectrum Pharmaceuticals (SPPI) was up 44 cents to 7.51.

Portfolio position Westport Innivations (WPRT) added 50 cents to 10.95. United (UAUA) was up 77 cents to 8.43, and DryShips (DRYS) 39 cents at 7.15 on 41 1/2 million shares. Brigham Exploration (BEXP) snapped back to 9.45, up 24 cents.

On the downside, there were only small fractional losers, and nothing as much as a point down.

Stepping back and reviewing the hourly chart patterns, we had a very distinct rally off the early lows after just barely breaking support but couldn't follow through to the downside, and as a result we had a short-covering run that broke to new highs for 2009 today.

Harry Boxer is a technical consultant to many Wall Street hedge funds and large institutional traders, and author of TheTechTrader.com.